are pikes overpowered?

[Nevada]

hi,
i figured out the following "problem" when fighting the scots. their pikes seem to me overpowered.

i play as norway and siege edinburgh. i send my huscarls on a wall with pike militia on it, and they all die and rout during the pike militia has max. 30 casualties and it's even worser with heavy pike militia.

what do you think?

[IceBeast]

Pike units are definitely difficult to fight against. At least in 5.1, I found that swords units were better against them then ax units. This may just be coincidence though. I would try testing out using Norse Swordsman or DFK against em and see if that works better.

(Again this is from my observations with Denmark in 5.1, since Denmark was my favorite faction and I fought the scots alot. Could be completely different in 6.0).

[General Dissaray]

Shoot them. They can't stand up to a good voley of arows. Fighting on walls is always hard though. I prefer to take the wall out from underneeth people my self.

[Problem Sleuth]

hi,
i figured out the following "problem" when fighting the scots. their pikes seem to me overpowered.

i play as norway and siege edinburgh. i send my huscarls on a wall with pike militia on it, and they all die and rout during the pike militia has max. 30 casualties and it's even worser with heavy pike militia.

what do you think?

Solution: don't charge at the front effin' spearwall. Of course it's suicide. Maneuver your infantry to hit them from the side/back, they'll be annihilated. Alternatively, shoot them to bits with arrows and crossbow bolts.

[MightyMak]

Archers beat Pikemen.

[IceBeast]

The problem with both Bert and Mighty's solution is that they pikemen are on the wall. Ground archers are highly ineffective against wall troops, and Frontal attack is kind of the only option.

[TWmadman]

i prefer pikemen like this than most modded (and vanilla) bugged pikemen which are weaker than peasant and even useless against cavalry because they lose their pikes to fight with sword at first contact...

[melancholic]

Yeah, I agree that pikemen dominate siege battles, when it comes to fighting in tight spaces like wall openings, small alleys, etc...
But once you have the walls, you should be putting those archers on the walls and javelins are nice too.

As it stands now, you can't win a siege battle against pikemen with considerable numerical superiority. I don't have a problem with that but the scottish pikemen are really tough to deal with.

[User Name]

All this talk of pikemen remindes me of the Germanic pikes in RTW.

I hated them they were almost unbeatable. Pikes have always been tough to beat though from the front just take them from in the rear and you should be good.

[Ares82]

Well pike men were becoming more dominant during the medieval period, so it makes sense for them to be powerful. However, they shouldn't be that powerful on the walls though.

A good solution though would be to blast the wall with artillery and THEN you can use archers on them. Or you can just try to starve out the city and wait for them to sally out to fight you, of course, I realize, that that's not always possible, but it is an option.

[Tresidentevil]

take a leaf from medieval history - the english learnt to use archers against scots pikes in real life - pick pike units apart with archers/ x bows/artillery.

or attack from the rear or sides.

[DireklianCliff]

All of you are forgetting the main point. He wants to know how to beat pikes that are on a siege wall.

Well, first of all pikes don't do a lot of damage. And they have no armor. Their only advantage is their pike's reach. I would use shock infantry or good defensive units like Dismounted Feudal Knights if you can. Another good unit is Dismounted Teutonic Knights (I will assume all the knightly orders are similar). The excellent morale will keep the Dis. Teutonic Knights from breaking, and their armor should keep them from impaling themselves on the pikes.

I've never had a siege ladder or tower successfully take my walls. So I never use them myself. I would much rather knock a wall down than try and climb it.

[IceBeast]

Thanks dire for trying to show this point too. I agree, siege weapons might be the best solution. I do use siege towers and ladders, but it really depends on the quality of troops going up the ladders vs the quality of troops on the wall. Also, using your general to run along the bottom of the wall to boost moral is huge.

[DireklianCliff]

Also, using your general to run along the bottom of the wall to boost moral is huge.

True story.

[Mhydrian]

Well pikemen in a defensive role are hard to beat hands down. So if a besieged army has pikes beware. Pike men were some of the most elite troops before the widespread use of gunpowder.

[DavidtheDuke]

You can't attack pikes from behind or from the back on a siege wall. If you hit them from their rear while they're busy on the other end, eventually them form the ranks necessary on that side, making them untouchable, and essentially, invincible. As a human I can go around this by using missile siege equipment and/or simply avoid them on the walls.

Unfortunately this is another thing that can be exploited against the AI. Unless, were pike men actually invincible on walls in medieval times? I've never heard of it.

[Caesar Clivus]

Unfortunately this is another thing that can be exploited against the AI. Unless, were pike men actually invincible on walls in medieval times? I've never heard of it.

I've never heard of pikemen being historically used to defend walls at all. Would've thought their pikes would be too unwieldy to be effective on top of a wall...

[Tetsu]

Unfortunately this is another thing that can be exploited against the AI. Unless, were pike men actually invincible on walls in medieval times? I've never heard of it.

I'd bet that a well commanded unit of pikes on a castle wall would have been invincible (except to missile weapons), as with the length of the pikes combined with a discliplined unit and dynamic command style, they could stab people on ladders before they getup/use the pikes to push down the ladders, form a pike wall against charges from along the wall and against towers.
Thats just my thoughts though.

[IceBeast]

I think the logistics problem of actually getting long pikes onto the wall could be troublesome. Think of the length of a pike vs. trying to get it up staircases and through small doors.

[DavidtheDuke]

I think the logistics problem of actually getting long pikes onto the wall could be troublesome. Think of the length of a pike vs. trying to get it up staircases and through small doors.

With this in mind, is there a way to at least mod pikemen where they CAN'T stand on the walls? I guess it's probably not possible, but I'm just throwing it out there. Or maybe only use swords on the walls? Or rather, maybe you can make the AI in the formation files not use pikemen on the walls. If they/it won't, I won't either.